Wave transmitters, such as electromagnetic fiber optics or acoustic wave guides, are used to transmit information, such as an image, from one location to another. The waves transmitted may be transmitted over a long distance, or may be transmitted along a curved path, and may be transmitted as serial signals or in parallel. The medium of the wave transmitter may be glass, plastic, or metal, and may be single fibers of a single material, single fibers clad with a different material, hollow fibers, or plates made of multiple individual fibers held in parallel.
Photonic fiber optic elements may operate using a mechanism of total internal reflection (i.e., TIR) to prevent most of the photons from escaping from the fiber and to obtain high transmission efficiency. Total internal reflection transmission efficiency is greatest when the emission angle of the photonic radiation to the direction of the axis of the fiber is small, and falls off rapidly with increasing input angle depending on numerical aperture. As a result conventional devices using wave transmitters are typically designed to carefully align the emitter to the input of the individual fiber optic to maintain sufficient transmission levels.
An example of prior art X-ray detector might include a layer of a phosphor compound that emits visible light when struck by an X-ray. The light emitted is partially transmitted to a detector/imager by a faceplate in close contact with the phosphor layer on one side and in close contact with the detector/imager on the other side of the faceplate. Only the photons emitted by the phosphor layer that are closely aligned with the long axis of the individual fibers of the TIR faceplate will be transmitted to the detector/imager.